Wednesday Reading

[sartorias]

It’s interesting to me that during the Victorian period, children’s literature was very frequently far more violent than literature for adults. (I’m ignoring potboilers here.) While adult literature was full of manners, ladies and gentlemen, possibly a duel or two (and let’s not forget the casual racism, sexism, etc), children’s literature was

Comments

[whswhs]

Even very good books can be tricky. I love the Just So Stories, and when C's greatniece was born we thought of giving a copy to her parents when she was old enough to be read to; but then there's "How the Leopard Got His Spots," with its Ethiopian character referred to by a no longer acceptable word, and several of the other stories have ethnic stereotyping-and we both just thought that they were likely to find it unsuitable; it seemed too risky a choice.

Which is to say I see your policy of reading books before handing them to children as obviously prudent.

[sartorias]

Yeah--so much depends on the kid, and their age.

[mme_n_b]

As someone who defined the word "gelding" for a 5-year-old yesterday (the 8-year-old knew it, hah), let me assure you that hit is easy and altogether painless. ;)

[sartorias]

Good to know!

[whswhs]

Oh, "geld" the verb! I thought it was an archaic word for "money" until I saw the derived noun.